I managed to pre-bake thin crusts but I've been having trouble getting traditional crust and pan pizza crusts to cook from the inside, this pre-baking procedure will help save lots of time for my future business. Thin crust pre-baking temperature was 500°F for 3 min. I tried 5 and 3 minutes for traditional dough and pan pizza dough but maybe it's the temperature I have to lower and add more time. Please someone help me!

By pre-bake, I mean baking a pizza dough part way before adding toppings, and then completing the baking of the pizza. By par-bake, I mean baking a pizza dough part way and then refrigerating or freezing it for future use, with or without toppings. It sounds like you mean par-bake. Is that correct?

Thank you for the clarification. Sometimes the term "pre-bake" is used instead of "par-bake", but I wanted to be certain before responding further.

I am not a pizza operator, but some time ago I did some research on par-baking crusts so that I could experiment making a par-baked Lehmann thin (NY style) crust--which I did and reported on at the Lehmann thread. Most of the information came from answers to questions posed by people such as yourself to Tom Lehmann at the PMQ Think Tank. I also found information on the subject at the Correll website, at http://www.correllconcepts.com/Encyclopizza/02_On-site_vs_RTU/02_on-site_vs_RTU.htm#_Toc530971772.

I assume that you have been able to successfully make the the thin par-baked crusts, and that your concern now is the thicker crusts. If that is so, the following excerpts from some of the Lehmann responses (in quotes) might be useful.

"A good par-baked pizza crust can be made from just about any good pizza dough. Nothing special here. For thin crusts I normally bake on a screen or disk; for thick crusts I like to use a 2-inch deep black anodized pan with a light coating of spray release oil. Bake in a deck oven at 400 F or an impinger at 375 F. Baking time will generally be 3 to 4 minutes. The crusts should be baked just until they begin to show signs of turning light brown. As soon as you remove the crust from the oven, invert it for cooling on a wire rack or screen. After it has cooled, flip it over for freezing, dressing, and refreezing as a whole pizza."

"A lot of people have experimented with par-baking thick crusts, and that is OK; the finished pizza is OK, not great, but OK. If you want to experiment doing that, after the dough has risen in the pan, bake it at about 400 F just until the top begins to turn brown, then remove it from the oven and take the crust out of the pan and place it on a rack or screen to cool. When cool, you can put in a plastic bag and store in the cooler for up to a week. To use, just remove from the cooler, and place into a greased pan, dress and bake at 450 F. The only real downside to par-baked crusts is a general lack of flavor and dryness of the crust. They can however, have a really great eating characteristic."

"Potato flour has been used successfully in pizza crust production, especially par-baked thick crusts to help improve the overall quality of the par-baked crust. It also imparts some crust color so you will most likely need to reduce the sugar level a little when using potato flour. As to the amount of potato flour to use, I'd go with 5% of the flour weight and also increase the dough absorption by about 4% at the same time." (Pete-zza's note: I assume increasing the dough absorption means increasing the hydration by 4%.)

"I think one of the best deep-dish crusts that I've ever had is a par-baked crust…..I made my dough with 10% potato flour in it. I had to increase the dough absorption by almost 8% to compensate for the drying effect of the potato flour. I then pan proofed the dough for 45 to 60 minutes at room temperature. I then par-baked the dough/crust at 400 F in a deck type oven. The baking time was approximately 5 minutes. Just bake the crusts until they're set, but not browned. On the following day, I dressed the crusts and baked them at 450 F for about 18 minutes. The finished crusts were extremely tender eating, some here at the AIB say they eat like cotton candy. That's my take on it, you may or may not like that kind of crust. A little experimenting should give you the crust characteristics that you are looking for."

Why thank you Pete-zza, the link you gave me is fantastic and I've just finished reading it all. Also your suggestions are excellent so I like learning from you because you know a lot. Well, tomorrow I'll try making my par-baking and will let you know how it go.

Thanks to Pete-zza I've managed to make par-baking the right way and my frustration is over. Today I par-baked thin cursts like it said on the link you gave me and same temperature and time as before but this time I placed hot pans and at first I only placed one pan and it puffed at the end result so for the next one I placed two hot pans and the weight from the pans helped the dough remain thin and not able to puff.

For the traditional pizza I let my dough fermentate from 1-3 days in the fridge then I take it out and place it in a warm area til it softens (about 30 min), then I stretch it over the pan with my fingers making a nice circle as thin as possible without using a rolling pin. Then I poke the dough with a rolling pin with spikes (don't know the name for that item) and i pop it in the conveyour oven at 350°F for 4 min. So I learned good stuff from that page thanks to Pete-zza. The results for that dough were excellent and tomorrow I'll try par-baking pan pizza which I think it's the hardest one but I'll try adding potato flour and see what happens and tomorrow I'll post my results.

I'm glad to see that you are making progress. The tool you were referring to is called a dough docker in the U.S.

I am a bit curious about your two-pan method. Are the pans actually pans or are they disks (solid or perforated?), and did you stack two of them together and put the dough on top? Or did you put the dough on one pan and put the second pan on top of the dough in the first pan?

I'll be especially interested in your result using the potato flour for the deep-dish par-bakes. As you know, we have a lot of members who are very interested in the deep-dish.

By the way, I followed the advice of Tom Lehmann and John Correll when I tried making a par-baked Tom Lehmann NY style crust. If you are interested, the way I did it is set forth, with photos, at Reply #129 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.120.html. I don't know if NY style is popular in Mexico, but if you have screens or disks I suspect that you could make them there also, using your conveyor.

I used 3 perforated cutter pans. I got them at pizzatools.com along with most of the equipment I have in the future pizza place. I liked those pans because you can place the dough for thin crust over it and then pass the rolling pin over the pan and it cuts it. I first place the dough on the pan then I pass the rolling pin over it, then I use the dough docker and then I place two of the same type of pans which are hot and place them over the extended dough. This seems to give enough weight so that the dough won't get puffed like the first time I tried using only one hot pan. Am I hard to understand I'll search for potato flour first, but if i can't find it you think I could use potato flakes (like the ones used to make mashed potatoes)?Isn't NY style kind of like the traditional recipe?

If you can get potato flour that would be better. You might be able to use the dehydrated potato flakes that are sold in supermarkets and used to make mashed potatoes, but one of the problems with those products is that they usually include sodium bisulfite. The sodium bisulfite is used to prevent browning. However, in a dough it slows down the yeast activity. If you decide to use the dehydrated flakes anyway, you might try adding a bit more yeast to compensate for the slower yeast activity. If you find you need a bit more color in the crust, which the potato flour would do, you might add a bit of sugar to your recipe or increase it a bit if your recipe already has it. You might also give some thought to pulverizing the potato flakes if you use them, to get them in a finer, maybe more usable form. I would use a food processor. I don't know if that will help or hurt, but it might be worth trying as a simple experiment. Maybe you can try it both ways.

If by traditional pizza style you mean an American style, like what the chains like Domino's, Papa Johns, etc., make, I would say that the NY style is different. In Mexico, I suspect a NY style pizza made with all-purpose flour will look more like the American style. On a past visit to Mexico, my daughter-in-law made the Lehmann NY style pizza dough using only the local all-purpose flour, and it turned out fine. It was softer and less chewy than the real thing (with high-gluten flour) but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I wrote out a recipe for my daughter-in-law to use while in Mexico (where she now is) but didn't keep a copy for myself. I am now in the process of trying to get the recipe to let you know what we did.

Finally, I've perfectioned pan pizza par-baking. I used less dough per pan since people are nos used to very thick pizzas and I did 350°F for 8 min. Crust and bottom were barely toasted not golden brown but yellow because of the oil and still crispy, but the finishing baking should turn it golden brown. I've found that using refrigeration is better than freezing in my case. I could not find potato flour and time's not letting me use potato flakes so I'll have to try that for a temporary item.

I will be opening business on saturday the 2nd and wish me good luck because I'll need it very much, good thing's that I've managed to perfectionize dough, sauce and cheese like Lehmann said.